NEI Nuclear Notes

1. The 60th anniversary of Atoms for Peace (and NEI, too) – President Dwight Eisenhower gave the Atoms for Peace speech before the United Nations General Assembly on December 8, 1953. I’ve heard different thoughts about how to date the beginning of the domestic nuclear energy industry – the four light bulbs illuminated by Experimental Breeder Reactor I on December 20, 1951, the first successful use of nuclear energy to generate electricity, is a good candidate – but Atoms for Peace seems correct because the speech makes the moral and ethical, not just a technical, case for nuclear energy. That’s important and it makes 2013 the 60th anniversary of the industry. Atoms for Peace came about as a response to the rising tide of the cold war and Eisenhower’s perception that the world could embrace “the hopeless finality of a belief that two atomic colossi are doomed malevolently to eye each other indefinitely across a trembling world.” Against this nihilistic view, Eisenhower propose...

Whether or not NEI is involved, we’re sure to see coverage, even celebration, of the 60th anniversary of the domestic nuclear energy industry. C.T. Carley of Mississippi State University decides to be the one that gets it going with an op-ed: Now, 60 years after President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his historic “Atoms for Peace” address to the U.N. General Assembly, history has shown that the world has benefited from nuclear energy. That’s pretty nice. More, please: “A great boon for the benefit of mankind” is on the horizon if that energy is harnessed for peace. His [Eisenhower’s] proposal took the form of an ambitious Marshall Plan for nuclear energy, a program of international pooling of nuclear technology and fissionable materials. The editorial goes on to mention the five reactors being built here and 68 other ones being sited around the world. Nuclear plants supply more clean energy than any of the alternative power sources. Despite billions of dollars in government...